


the face of devastation

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Jodhaa-Akbar (2008)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fertility Issues, Historical Figures, Historical References, Married Couple, POV Female Character, POV Third Person, Post-Canon, Tenderness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:54:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26803210
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: For a prompt on "love has two faces; one of them is the face of devastation." This fic, from Jodhaa's perspective, imagines the potential emotional and political implications of the fact that the heir to the empire that Akbar so remarkably -- and in many ways implausibly -- established was not born until seven years after her marriage.Alternatively: this fic presents scenes from five years in which Jodhaa did not become known as Mariam-uz-Zamani... and one in which she did.
Relationships: Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar/Mariam-uz-Zamani | Jodhaa Bai
Comments: 22
Kudos: 27





	1. 1564

**Author's Note:**

  * For [avani](https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/gifts).



Jodhaa learns many things in the first two years of her marriage. She learns about practicing diplomacy through action and through refraining from action. She learns about planting her hands in a new place, in hopes that her heart will follow. She learns how to sing praise to her gods in a foreign land. She cooks a feast, and learns how little she is trusted by the court, no matter the public honors offered by her husband. In exile, she refuses shame, and learns about her husband at the end of a sword.

Jodhaa also learns, sometimes painfully, about her own heart, as she finds herself bound to a man who once challenged all her loyalties. She learns that love can be like the rains of high summer: terrifying and life-giving at once. And she learns, beside a sickbed and beside a battlefield, that the empire of Hindustan is as vulnerable as the body of its ruler, though it may seem indomitable as his will.

So Jodhaa prays to the Lord Krishna, who had eighty sons. She prays him to remember his love for Rukmini, whose sons were in no way inferior to their glorious father. And she prays him to look with favor on her, where she makes her offerings with love and devotion, where her husband has built her a temple, and has learned to pay his respects.

Despite her prayers, she trembles when Jalaluddin sends for her.

“Jodhaa,” he says softly. He is caressing her palms, too observant not to notice her tension.

“Lord.”

“What is it?” When she does not answer, he continues: “However much I might desire your presence, you know I could not wish to command it.”

“Yes, lord.” She leans her head against his chest, forces herself to breathe deeply. “I have not…” She stops, swallows. “I would wish to give you a son, lord.”

He lets out a breath. And then, he runs his hands from her wrists to her shoulders. “Inshallah.” 

She chuckles, a little tearfully, and puts her arms around him. She still cannot bring herself to look at his face. “You say that as though…” _As though there were no rumors._ But his hands are assured, lightly mapping the lines of her collarbone, working to undo the knots of anxiety in her shoulders.

“Nothing is certain,” he says, his voice still gentle. “A husband, idolizing the features of his wife, may beget a daughter.”

Her laughter is easier this time. “My lord is teasing me.”

“It is according to the principles of nature,” he replies sententiously; but when she looks up, he is indeed smiling at her.

“I see,” says Jodhaa. She wonders at the strange, patient, learned man before her, and at her love for him. She raises her face for his kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am counting only the sons of Krishna's 8 principal wives, but if this has led me into serious error, I welcome correction.
> 
> The observation about a man begetting a daughter because of his own love for his wife's beauty is taken from Akbar's sayings as recorded by Abul Fazl. This seems to be a somewhat idiosyncratic opinion, based in but not widely held by current medical theories.


	2. 1565

Salima hovers in the doorway. For some moments, Jodhaa feigns sleep, waiting for her to depart. She desires neither food nor drink; she desires no perfumed cloths for her temples, no water to wash. The maidservant does not go.

“Approach,” says Jodhaa at last.

“The emperor has sent to say that he would desire your company. I…” Salima hesitates. “I did not presume to reply without informing you.”

Jodhaa does not say aloud that at least Salima has learned of the dangers of making assumptions. But she is too weary for tact, too weary even to hide her own misery. “Tell him it is _haram_ ,” she says, not without bitterness.

Salima shifts her weight. “Yes?” demands the empress. “What else?”

“I — nothing,” says Salima. “That is all?”

Jodhaa swallows. “Yes, that is all.”

Later, it is Nimat who comes to inform her that the emperor desires her to receive him. Jodhaa sits up, somewhere between confusion and alarm. “A mirror,” she says, “and a comb.” _Why? Why now? Why here, when it is not wise, and he is always so careful in weighing his choices?_ As Nimat hands her the requested objects, she finds herself thinking: _always, perhaps, except with respect to this marriage._ Jodhaa applies cream to her face, and feels a little better for it. But she still does not understand why Jalaluddin has sought her out. She knows it is not prudent to keep him waiting.

He comes to her swiftly, as if anxious to disprove something feared or rumored. But when she pats the divan next to her, he sits down hesitantly, and extends his hand, palm-up, an invitation and a request. She responds, squeezes it faintly.

“Why?” asks Jodhaa, bluntly and blankly. “Why have you come?”

“It is not _haram_ to look at you, to be in your presence.”

“I know,” replies Jodhaa sharply. “I have learned the term and its meanings.” She bites her lip, and presses on: “I have inquired of learned men, and they have spoken very knowledgeably of how irregularity of times and days affects what is forbidden and permitted, affects even the names for blood.” She is embarrassed to find that her eyes are pricking with tears.

“Have they been unkind?” asks Jalal. “I will…”

“No,” says Jodhaa quickly, before her husband can sin by promising to punish the scholars of his religion for bringing grief to his Hindu wife. “No, not… not unkind. But very dry and very precise, in speaking of things concerning women’s lives.”

“Ah.” He raises his free hand to stroke her hair, and she leans her head gratefully against his shoulder. “I came,” he says softly, “because I knew that you had hoped.”

“It would have been more politic,” murmurs Jodhaa, “to send for another of your wives, lord.” She sighs. “But I am glad of your coming.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Attitudes and practices surrounding menstruation in premodern and early modern Islamic medicine and theology are... extremely complicated. But there is significant textual evidence to suggest that male medical practitioners, in many cases, had direct consultations with, and performed examinations of, their female patients. I am assuming here that at least the former would have been acceptable. (Surprisingly little has been written on medical practice at the Mughal court, insofar as I have been able to discover. Have I spent a disproportionate amount of time looking into this? Possibly.)


	3. 1566

She is surprised when Jalal comes to find her in the garden. She looks up from watching the rabbits to find him lingering near the arcade. Her smile is the only invitation he needs.

“Is the emperor of Hindustan evading his duties?” she inquires teasingly.

“Attending to them,” he replies, and sits down. 

Jodhaa gathers Chameli into her lap, hides the trembling of her hands in thick, white fur. She has been afraid of this, and has, of late, absented herself from the audience chamber accordingly. She does not want to see delegations presenting princesses as potential brides. Still less does she desire certain knowledge of the ministerial opinion that Jalal — the husband she has feared, and loved, and feared for — has failed his people by showing partiality for her, the wife who cannot give him a son. Sometimes she still hears the echo of an formidable old woman’s voice: _a marriage is complete only when there is an heir._

“Jodhaa? Are you unwell?”

She spreads her hands nervously; Chameli hops away, and the jingling of her own bracelets mocks her like laughter. To her surprise, her husband flushes slightly.

“I did not mean…”

“I am not unwell,” says Jodhaa quickly. “I… feared what you might have to say to me.”

He raises his eyebrows slightly. “I flattered myself that it was a long time since you feared me.”

“It is. It is, lord.”

“Then…” Waiting for her answer, he is absorbed enough that he startles slightly when Agarbatti nuzzles inquisitively against his knee.

Jodhaa sighs. “Are your ministers and holy men telling you to send me away?”

“What?”

“Honorably,” says Jodhaa. “With an escort and servants, silks and elephants, to gladden some distant outpost with my presence.” He stiffens, and a muscle tightens along his jaw. 

“They would not dare.”

“They might,” insists Jodhaa, determined. “Because I am an infidel and a foreigner, and I have not given you a son,” she says, and watches the color drain from her husband’s face. She watches his breathing quicken, and she watches him bring even that again under his control.

When Jalaluddin speaks, it is very calmly. “They might as well ask me to cut out my heart.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The names of the rabbits are taken, with gratitude, from [this fic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16214966) by [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/pseuds/AllegoriesInMediasRes)


	4. 1567

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be advised that this chapter portrays the aftermath of miscarriage.

When, finally, there is no more blood; when the maidservants have taken away the linens to be washed or burned; when the physicians have departed from behind their screens, making their salaams; then it is Hamida Banu Begum who stays, and the empress of Hindustan weeps like a lost child in her mother-in-law’s arms. The dowager empress sits, and strokes Jodhaa’s hair, and sings fragments of songs in her own language.

“I thought,” sobs Jodhaa at last, “I thought…”

“Shh, dear-heart. I know.”

“Did they say?” asks Jodhaa in a small voice. “Did they say, whether it would have been…?”

Hamida’s hand tightens on her daughter-in-law’s shoulder. “No,” she says. “No.”

For several minutes, Jodhaa is silent. “Maybe that would have been worse,” she says at last. Hamida Banu Begum simply continues to hold her, and stroke her hair, as her own mother might have done. Jodhaa dozes, and wakes, and is grateful not to wake alone.

“Can you drink something?” asks her mother-in-law, her tone coaxing, and because Jodhaa knows she ought to, she nods, and sits up.

At last, she asks the question. “Have they told him?”

Hamida sighs. “They will have done.” Jodhaa is almost too tired to mind that she begins to weep again. “Shall I tell him not to come until you send for him?”

“I…” Jodhaa swallows. From the first time they met, with a curtain and her terror and pride between them, he has always accepted her conditions, has refused to take advantage of his power. But she is not sure if she dares rely on that. “I don’t know,” says Jodhaa miserably.

“All right,” says her mother-in-law soothingly, and kisses her on the brow. “Try to sleep.”

The physicians come the next day, to ask questions and murmur vague reassurances. Nimat tries to make her laugh. Salima washes her hair. And the day after that, Nimat, looking faintly sardonic, tells her that her husband wishes to know if she is well enough to receive him.

Jodhaa is faintly surprised to feel a prickling chill of fear, a weight of anxiety that settles nauseatingly within her. “Yes,” she says.

Seeing the emperor of Hindustan, she tells herself she was wrong to fear his displeasure or disappointment; he is pale, and she finds herself wondering how much he has slept. “Lord,” says Jodhaa.

She does not think she is imagining that he winces slightly. What he says, with grave formality, is: “It is a relief to find you well.”

“Jalal,” says Jodhaa simply, and his shoulders drop in relief.

“You have been well-attended by the physicians?” He sits carefully on the edge of the bed. “They have assured your comfort? They…”

Jodhaa puts her fingers over his lips. “Everything has been done,” she says, “that could be done.” She shuts her eyes against her own tears. His hand on her shoulder is tentative, but Jodhaa leans forward, rests her head against the crook of his neck. He puts his arms around her a little more carefully than usual, and Jodhaa shivers in his embrace.

“I cannot believe,” he says, quietly and fiercely, “that such trials are sent by God, as some have claimed. How can trials be justifiable by one who knows both what is hidden and what is manifest?”

Jodhaa sniffles. “Your holy men might find such ideas scandalous, lord.”

“So I bring them before you, and not before the ulama.” 

“Yes,” says Jodhaa, and shifts so that she can more easily curl into his side. She should, she thinks, find something to say to him; she falls asleep in his arms.


	5. 1568

She comes to his apartments to find him washed and perfumed and still smelling faintly of elephant. Jodhaa smiles a little; in another man, she might have termed it mere vanity, the devotion of his leisure to mastering wild beasts, when not to conversation with philosophers and sages.

“I can always tell,” she informs him, “when you have been taming elephants.” She does not say: _it is a dangerous pastime, for a man without a son._

“If the smell offends you…” he says, and sniffs doubtfully at his fingers. “I did wash.”

“I know you did. And it doesn’t.” She takes his hand, and follows him onto the battlements.

For some time they are silent together. Jodhaa watches as the twilight softens the contours of the hills, listens to the distant bleating of goats being driven home from pasture. Sometimes she is astonished by how easy it is, despite everything, to simply be with Jalal, at rest and at peace.

“It seems a lifetime,” she says, “since I feared a future with you.”

He laughs softly; she still thinks he laughs too seldom. “Good.”

“I should not wish,” she says, “to… to stand in the way of your future.”

His brow furrows slightly. “My Jodhaa, how could you?”

“Prophecy or no prophecy, lord,” she says, staring at the horizon, “it seems unwise to place your hopes in…” Her voice catches in her throat. _In me_ , she does not say. Her husband comes to stand behind her, and gathers her into his arms.

“Mallika,” he says, murmuring the title against the shell of her ear as though it were an endearment, “listen. You taught me the wisdom to distinguish between what it was to conquer, and what it is to rule by love. How could I forget that you resisted me in my strength, and served me in my weakness?”

“Don’t…”

“Very well,” he says equably, dropping a kiss to her shoulder, “I won’t speak of it. May I speak of something else?”

It is Jodhaa’s turn to laugh, though she blinks away tears as she twines her fingers with his. “As my lord pleases.”

“I think,” he says deliberately, “that I knew, even before you penned my name as an offering of love, that to you I could come — I could only come — as myself. You have known my folly and my weakness, you have known me in danger as in prosperity, and…”

“And,” concludes Jodhaa, turning to face him, “I love you, Jalaluddin Muhammad Akbar.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The referenced prophecy is that which Akbar received, apparently in late 1568 (the _Jahangirnama_ is a bit vague), telling him that he would have three sons.


	6. 1569

At the festival of Sakraat, Jodhaa distributes alms, and wonders if she might begin to hope. And as the days grow steadily warmer, and the weeks of winter draw to a close, she prays to Krishna with doubt and fear in her heart. She has hoped many times before; she is exhausted by hope. She is also — she admits this to herself, and fears she cannot hide it from Salima and Nimat — simply exhausted.

When she enters Mir Bakawal’s domain on the feast of Pir, she realizes that she should have anticipated this challenge; she will not retreat from it. Jodhaa is proud of presiding over the cooking. But she is relieved when the task is over. 

Jalal is, of course, politely expectant, and politely appreciative, though Jodhaa harbors doubts about the spices. The court accepts the now-familiar ritual. And Jodhaa is unreasonably annoyed with herself for being simultaneously ravenous and nauseated. She makes her excuses when she can, claiming fatigue.

Salima, she finds, has brought a bowl of rice and a plate of ginger sweets to her chambers in the zenana. Jodhaa is tempted to be irritated even by this, by its necessity and by Salima’s perception of it, but she eats the rice. When she has progressed to the ginger sweets, Nimat asks dryly:

“What is the emperor to be told, when he inquires after your indisposition?”

“Tell him that I am asleep,” says Jodhaa; “I mean it to be true.”

“He will be convinced that you are dying,” sighs Nimat, with theatrical mournfulness, and Jodhaa laughs almost in spite of herself.

“Nonsense!” Jodhaa chews thoughtfully on the candied ginger. “ _If_ he asks,” she says, attempting a tone of reproof, “tell him I will come to him, if I may.”

She sleeps soundly, and wakes to the light of late afternoon. Salima helps her change, and choose jewelry, and arrange her veil. And finally, clothed in golden silks and chilled with tension, Jodhaa lets Nimat escort her to the imperial apartments.

“May I observe,” asks Nimat plaintively, “that where the empress of Hindustan is concerned, the emperor of Hindustan has a tendency to behave like a lovesick youth?”

“Certainly not,” says Jodhaa, and spoils the effect of the reprimand by blushing. “It would be improper. And insolent,” she adds.

“Ah,” says Nimat. “Well then, I won’t.”

Jodhaa takes a deep breath, and finds herself a little less nervous. “Thank you, Nimat.” The eunuch smiles, and departs from her at the threshold, making an elaborate salaam. 

Jodhaa enters to find her husband pacing; seeing her, he stops, and Jodhaa smiles at his ability to appear outwardly composed, his inability to hide his anxiety from her. She is grateful, for once, for his habit of catching her before she can touch his feet, saving her from dizziness.

“Jodhaa,” he begins, and she interrupts him.

“Were the spices wrong, lord?”

Jalal blinks. “The spices?”

“Yes, lord.”

He shakes his head slightly, still holding her hands. “They were different, that is all. I only wondered… if you were quite well.”

Jodhaa goes into her husband’s arms, allows herself to embrace him. “I am quite well, lord.” She takes a deep breath. “I am quite well.”

“And yet you are trembling.” 

Jodhaa traces the familiar planes of his back. “I am well, lord,” she says again. “But I am carrying a child, and I do not know whether to be joyful or afraid.”

He puts back her veil, then, and takes her face in his hands and kisses her — on her brow, her eyes, her mouth.

“My lord is pleased,” murmurs Jodhaa at last, and he laughs unsteadily.

“I… yes,” he says, and his eyes are shining. “Yes.” Jodhaa reaches to run one finger along the line of his jaw. “You are truly well?”

Jodhaa smiles up at him. “I am tired,” she confesses, “and given to anxiety, and much addicted to ginger, but…” she laughs as he lifts her into his arms… “but I am well,” she finishes.

“Praise be to Allah in all things,” says Jalal, and sets her down gently on the bed.

“Even in your Hindu wife?”

“Especially in my Hindu wife,” he replies, “who is rich in wisdom as in beauty, and — as I have known from the day of our betrothal — extraordinary in her courage.”

For answer, Jodhaa reaches for him.

When the heir to the empire of Hindustan is born, it is not at the court, which has seen so much treachery, and violence, and grief. He is born in a house of whitewashed bricks that lies a day’s journey away from the palace by litter, and less than half that for a determined man on a fast horse. A plane tree stands in its courtyard. In the house of a holy Sufi, Jodhaa celebrates the auspicious festival of the birth of the Lord Krishna, and gives birth to her son ten days later. And amid the subsequent weeks of feasting, when the poor rejoice in plenty, the emperor of Hindustan sets all prisoners free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ending as the fic began with a bit more distance from Jodhaa's perspective seemed necessary; I wanted to attempt to offer an explanation consistent with the emotional realities of the film for the circumstances of Salim's birth. 
> 
> Did I look up the phases of the moon in 1569? yes.
> 
> Akbar's setting free of all prisoners as a response to his son's birth is a historical detail which I find very moving.


End file.
